Last week, we discussed the issue of clients who are seemingly always avoiding their meetings with you. This week, George Miller is joining us again as we get further into the topic and share solutions for MSPs to have better meetings with their clients.
To ensure you’re going to have a great meeting with your client, the one thing you really need to prioritize is knowing the person that is going to be sitting across the table from you. What’s important to them? What are their key initiatives?
Consider what you want the outcome of the meeting to be. If it’s just to sell your product – well, you’re probably not actually going to get the job done. Instead, research the company you are meeting with and learn about its history. Find out what made the company what it is today. Do this for each and every one of your clients.
In addition, you should find out more about them beyond who they are in the office. Sure, you know that they run a Microsoft shop on the street corner, but you should truly know your client. What’s their favorite sports team? Where do they like to go out to eat? What are they doing on their days off? Do they have a dog, a family? General questions are important. When you know the answers to questions like these, your client becomes much more than just your client to you.
You can also make these connections by simply paying attention. During this podcast episode with George, I learned so much about him just by noticing his background and asking about the medals and photos that were hanging on his wall. You can certainly do the same with your clients.
To see how well you know your client, try asking yourself if you know them well enough to buy them a gift. I don’t mean a gift card – I mean a real, actual gift. If you don’t feel confident in being able to do this, it likely means you need to pay a little closer attention to your client and their likes. After all, if they’re worth $10,000 a month to you, aren’t they also worth spending an hour of your day getting to know them and their interests?
Us MSPs also need to stop caring about technology and start caring about solutions. “Solutions” here does not mean better firewalls, PCs, the latest and greatest products, and so on. “Solutions” means speaking with the trucking company that has been manually entering their mileage and offering to hook them up with a new software program that will save them time and increase their accuracy. This client doesn’t care about the firewall; they care about the fact that you solved this huge mileage problem for them.
At the end of the day, the meeting with your client is about impact, relevance, and value. It’s about making sure your client is spending the best hour of their life with you during that meeting. You might not get the most technology-based discussions done, but they’ll be entertained for a solid hour and walk out feeling valued. Make them feel like you can relate to them and you understand their words, their emotion.
Humanize the conversations with your clients.
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